Image is everything. It doesn't matter what's inside your head, as long as you look good. As long as you're skinny and bronzed like an island goddess. Have a flat stomach and big hair, not the other way around. Voluptuous lips and long eyelashes. 36-24-36. Six foot and then some, with a pair of platforms. Look natural, like you've just rolled out of bed; even if it takes you five hours, an army of stylists and an industrial-sized can of hairspray to sizzle your limp hair into generous curls. Glamorously arched eyebrows and a Cindy Crawford mole.

It's easy to blame the media for the focus on the aesthetic. Advertising especially, entertaining illusions of wearing a particular brand of clothing will make you beautiful like their flawlessly photoshopped models. Even things that seem plausible, like wearing a type of makeup to achieve impeccably smooth skin, are an unrealistic fantasy for the more repulsive members of society.

I ascribe the issue to people rather than the media, which does little more than feed us images. The only unrealistic ideals that the media offers are statements like "everyone is beautiful, no matter their shape or size". That is a load of shit- everyone knows that women have to be thin and tall with oversized mammaries if anyone is to be seriously attracted to them. And even then, you can't please everyone- even Megan Fox, the epitome of sexy, has her critics- savage ones at that.

I'm sick of being ugly. I'm not this way inclined because of the influence of enhanced images of celebrities, or because of anything that anyone may have told me. Nobody has successfully pressured me to believe that success hinges on one's ownership of a pair of double Ds, it just seems to be assumed knowledge.

Unfortunately nothing I can do will transform me into someone whose countenance won't terrify small children. Even with all the plastic surgery in the world, while it would be a vast improvement, I would always fall short. Cosmetics procedures that are within my financial reach are even more futile- my cupboard full of hair products has so far failed to give me voluptuous hair; and starving myself for as long as I can bear it (which would not be long knowing me!) can't give me the body I want.

I don't know what to do. I wish I could start over, with better genetics. Unfortunately modern science has not yet stretched this far, and even if it did, I might be a lost cause. I would love to say "tomorrow, I will..." but I have nothing to finish that sentence with that will rectify the issue. The best I could do is "tomorrow, I will stop caring", but I know that I will never adhere to that, as much as it is a silly thing to despair over.

I'm sick of being ugly, and I'm sick of trying not to be ugly, and I'm sick of caring about it so much. Unfortunately, like the pile of papers that I have accumulated that live in the study room, it will never go away. Sometimes it gets moved- right now it's in a red crate- but I can't bear to let go of its contents.